THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING; Martin Seeks National Recognition

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HAVING weathered the departure of its founder, the hostile takeover of its parent company's parent company and an apparent renaissance in New York advertising, all in the last two years, the Martin Agency, one of the hot regional ad agencies of the 1980's, is asking, ''What next?''

The shop, based in Richmond, is giving the same answer that many agencies have tendered over the years: New York. But Martin, a subsidiary of Scali, McCabe, Sloves, whose own majority owner, the Ogilvy Group, was acquired last year by the WPP Group, is approaching the city more gingerly than its competitors.

''It's not that we want to move to New York,'' said Mike Hughes, Martin's vice chairman and creative director. ''We just want to be more visible in New York. Before, we didn't care where our clients came from.''

The reasoning is simple. New York-based clients are more likely to advertise in New York media. And exposure, especially on New York television, tends to attract the attention of national corporate marketing executives. In such ways do regional agencies become national agencies. ''If we were to have any significant prime-time work on TV in New York City, it would make all the difference in the world,'' said John B. Adams Jr., the agency's executive vice president and chief new-business scout.

As if to underscore the agency's seriousness, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Adams were speaking in a most urbane venue, a seafood lunch over a round table at the Algonquin Hotel in mid-Manhattan, where they were joined by Tracy Lynn, the agency's new communications director. The meal followed Mr. Adams's meeting with a potential New York client, who had been attracted by a New York newspaper ad in which Martin compared itself favorably with Chiat/ Day/Mojo.

Not that Martin, a 25-year-old agency that finished last year with $150 million in billings, is a stranger to Madison Avenue. Mr. Hughes is active in the One Club, as was David N. Martin, the agency's co-founder, who left in 1988 for Hawley Martin Partners in Richmond.

The Martin Agency's 21-year-old ''Virginia is for lovers'' tourism ads are occasionally seen in New York, as are its television commercials for Residence Inns and Wrangler jeans, albeit only on cable.

The New York focus and the related marketing effort are only part of Martin's campaign to win national recognition beyond ad agency creative departments. The challenge was also faced by other leading regional shops with which Martin has been compared, like Fallon McElligott of Minneapolis and Hal Riney & Partners of San Francisco. But Fallon has lost two co-founders and Federal Express, a major national client. Riney has seen the exodus of the Perrier account and creative people, some of them to large New York agencies, which are again finding favor with creative types. Martin appears to have drawn a cautionary conclusion from these misadventures.

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''A lot of attention to regional agencies was generated simply because the trend was a trend,'' Mr. Adams said. ''To position ourselves as the next big agency for companies across the board would be a mistake.''

The Martin executives say they have selected five markets as targets: new or emerging business categories and companies; troubled brands or companies; merged companies with new identities; companies committed to making significant changes in market share, and companies that make generic products.

In the latter category, Martin will introduce its first advertisements for Lee sweat clothes, trying to bring the brand recognition of Lee jeans to sweats, the sort of gray flannel suits that ad people do not wear to work.

What Martin is not seeking, its executives affirmed, are clients who merely want to maintain slow and steady share growth for their No. 1 brands. Does that mean they would refuse a call from Colgate, they were asked? They blanched over their poached salmon.

''Are we saying the bottom third of American business is our market?'' Mr. Adams responded. ''No, the fact is, every company, whether Marriott or Procter & Gamble, has these situations when conventional wisdom doesn't work.''

And if they take a third-place brand in a category and make it No. 1?

''That,'' Mr. Hughes said, ''is a problem we'd love to have.''

A version of this article appears in print on May 8, 1990, on Page D00023 of the National edition with the headline: THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING; Martin Seeks National Recognition. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe